The Listeners

Nora D.S. Robins is Collections Co-ordinator (Internal) of the
University of Calgary Libraries.

“ ‘That is what we’re about,’ Mr. Kerr said, and at a distance
Mr. Kerr could hear the sound of flute bands. It leaked through the
bricks, through the puttied and painted edges of the window panes.
‘Aye, there’s the hero of all our history. That is it—the music of
a fine flute band.’ ”

So begins the story of a momentous day in the lives of the Kerrs,
father and son, whose religion, while nominally Protestant, is in
reality, music. Old Mr. Kerr is a man for whom life is defined by the
music of the flute. He is a gentle man who divides everybody into
denominations by band or instrument. He cannot comprehend why churches
will not accept anything played on an instrument as a prayer. The
sweetest of instruments is the flute and it is his.

His son Martin is also a musician but his instrument is a tuba “with
valves bigger than a steamship.” It was not always so. Martin was a
genius on the flute and rose to the position of first flute of the
Vienna Symphony, a position he gave up when he married a bandsman’s
daughter. The story of Martin’s rise and fall is told by Kerr in a
series of flashbacks as he watches the parade that marks Belfast’s
celebration of the Glorious Twelfth of July.

The Listeners is a story full of passion, humor, and not a little
laughter. The author, an Irish Canadian who grew up in Belfast, here
manages to capture a gentler side of the city.